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September 04, 2005
In Pursuit of Designer Overalls
They’re out there, hung haphazardly on a rack way in the back part of Wal-Mart. They’re also at Neiman Marcus glamorously draped over a faceless, plastic mannequin. They’re there I tell you. Each made by “Juanitas” from Honduras, and they’re perfect. They’re Marxian in their timeless transcendence; at once relevant to the logger, to the tree-hugger, to the fashionista, to the Russian immigrant, to the artist, to the farmer, and to the inmate. They are the most ubiquitous ‘jean-esian product in form, but also in content because they’re meant to fit me. Or you. Or him. Or her. Or a set of Siamese twins inhabiting one pant-leg each.
Marx would have shopped at Wal-Mart. Yes, it’s true! He said so! Listen: “The free trade system pushes the antagonism of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie to the extreme point. In a word, the free trade system hastens the social revolution. It is in this revolutionary sense alone, gentleman {and women, and unisex organisms}, that I vote in favor of free trade”. (Hardt, 158). He would have done so, to help bring them down.
Marx believed in the future. He believed in money as a complete social form and “Golly, Wally” so does Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart has complete (nearly monopolistic) control over low-priced goods, which has allowed them to dictate a new consumer culture, a new (and horrendous) working culture, and therefore a new (just accept it) social order including all networks of Jeandom in-between.
Now let’s get back to the overalls. Listen to that name ‘Over All(s)”. It’s a word of Jean ne sais pas that lords over the masses (meaning that indiscriminate and indifferent body described by Michael Hardt that I interpret to mean ‘the poor’). AND! It’s a word that likewise entrances the multitude (meaning a network of singular identities bound in today’s new social network of endless mixture again described by Michael Hardt that I interpret to mean 1st world nations and their inhabitants). Therefore, we (collective global citizens of both mass and multitude) are alike or even “universally standard” in our wearing of overalls. Only some are more expensive, more exclusive, and more elusive, stitched with a particular type of class struggle. Even MY class struggle: The Jessica’s, the Jews, the women, the Americans, the post-moderns, the Gen XY’s (I’m both), the unmarrieds, the designers, the confuseds, the athletes, the cat-lovers, and the skeptics in no particular order of allegiance.
All of this leads me toward wondering about my “class” (yes, we 12) struggle as well, and I look to Marx as a kind of style guide. He said, “The key is to grasp the direction of the present” (Hardt, 140) and that’s what I aim to do. I am for Wal-Mart (in the Marxian sense). And more practically, I am for the “common” we (global citizens) share and the “common” we (again, global friends) produce (these are Hardts’ definitions that I refer to). And as stated above, I also believe in labels, in groups, in co-identities split in threes. I don’t understand the notion of “universal standard” because it is myth. Instead I believe (or rather respect) the notions of power, of growth and of change. This is what’s happening now before my eyes; this power, growth (Wal-Mart) and change. It’s in motion, evolu-motion and it is fascinating and gruesome. It’s Wal-Mart (and the rich) as Golem. Only, this is no parable. We can’t reduce Wal-Mart back to clay. The WTO, IMF and countless other organizations are not going to repent before God to help them find their way.
So unlike that fantasy made colorful by the antics of the “Yes Men”, I don’t believe in a form of isolated radical activism that’s so esoteric, it’s meaning is masked. But I also ask is it enough for an all-class boycott of Wal-Mart? Is it enough to shop at Neiman Marcus (symbolic for “alternative”) instead? Is it enough to not shop at all? No. None of this is usable, tangible, or real. The most I can do is recognize that I am in a fight for an identity amidst a world of distraction.
So, today I’m going to purchase my overalls at Wal-Mart in solidarity with Marxist ideology. Then I’m going to work hard and assume my place in the current global order. Is this passive-aggressive, useless, rubbish? Well, yes. However, I soon predict a shortage of designer overalls. Where are you going to buy yours?
Posted by Jessica Gladstone at September 4, 2005 11:07 PM